


Reversio

by GrandDukeForever



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Angst, Brother Feels, Brotherhood, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Feel-good, Feelings, Feels, Fix-It, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Tearjerker, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 18:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2591801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrandDukeForever/pseuds/GrandDukeForever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen years after the Microbots incident, Robert Callaghan is released from prison. His daughter, of course, is the one to pick him up, but the reunion isn't nearly as happy as it once could have been.</p><p>The atmospheric silence hangs heavily in the car as Abigail drives. Neither one of them speaks, and Robert cannot bring himself to so much as glance in his daughter's direction.</p><p>It seems like an eternity before Abigail finally parks her car in their front driveway. Neither one moves.</p><p>Finally, his daughter is the first to break the silence; her knuckles are white as she grips the wheel. Her voice, in reality, is quite soft, but it resounds loudly in her father's ears. Cold. Like steel.</p><p><i>"You know what you have to do."</i><br/> <br/>OR: If teleportation is possible in this universe, then so should time traveling.</p><p>OR: It's been a while since GD has written anything; GD went to watch <i>Big Hero 6</i> last night; GD was mad about certain things that went down in <i>Big Hero 6</i>; GD had to go and furiously write something for the fandom to make GD feel better.</p><p>Oh yeah, and GD hopes that at least one other person out there felt the same way GD did, and GD hopes this makes it all better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO EVERYONE!!!! I know, it has been SUCH a long time since I have written anything. I've been both incredibly busy IRL and suffering from one intense case of writer's block. Anyone out there experience those moments where, no matter what you seem to write, it just seems like pure and utter trash? Yeah...that's how I've been feeling since the last time I posted anything. Now, finally, I think I have a story to tell again.
> 
> I realize I have several projects still left unfinished. I do plan to get back to them someday, I just don't know how soon just yet. I got a little burnt out, I suppose, after updating so regularly for quite a while. I hope this marks the beginning of a new wave of creativity, but we'll see how it goes. I've also been feeling rather melancholy recently, but hopefully that too shall pass soon.
> 
> TLDR; it feels good to be back, folks.

" _Callaghan._ "

A tall, lanky gentleman, looking far thinner than he had during the intake process, looks up quietly from the corner of his cell.  It's been five years since the incident with the Microbots.  Five years since he'd been briefly known and feared as the Yokai.  Now, overall, he just looks tired and worn.

The prison guard finds sufficient the man's eye contact for acknowledgement, and nods.  "Get up.  You've got a visitor."

A flicker of a frown crosses the old man's features before he does as he's told.  The prison guard taps in a code on a keypad attached to the wall which opens the door to Robert Callaghan's cell.  Within minutes he's cuffed and escorted to the visitation area, where he is told to sit in a chair.  Before him is a two-way mirror, and when he doesn't make any more movements, the guard who had escorted him there approaches him once more and looks down where he is, an eyebrow mildly quirked.

"First time here?" he asks.

Robert nods.  The guard sighs.

"All right then," he says, before tapping at the two-way mirror and pointing.  "Watch me."

The prison guard's tapping causes the mirror to flicker, and there is a momentary whirring noise as the mirror flickers and reveals itself to double as a digital screen.  The guard points at the green button in the upper righthand corner— _begin call_ —with a box containing a timer underneath.   _Thirty minutes_.  

"Press this to start," says the guard.  "That's all you need to do.  Then the time will start, and it'll countdown and end the call by itself."

Robert's eyes then follows the man's finger to the other side of the screen, at the bottom left corner.   _Details_ , it read.

"Almost forgot," the guard says.  "You can click this first, if you'd like.  It'll bring up the name of your caller, and it'll prompt you to either exit out of the details box or let your visitor know that you don't wish to see them."

When Robert still doesn't make a move, the prison guard lets out a small sigh.  "Well?  Do you understand?"

Robert simply nods.

"Well, all right then," the guard says before taking a step back. "Let's not keep whoever's out there waiting for you in suspense then, eh?"

Robert debates briefly for a moment, before deciding he'd rather just take his chances and hits the command to start calling.  There's no real time to prepare himself as the screen changes instantly to reveal the person who has been sitting on the other side, waiting for him.  It takes him less than half a second to realize who it is before him.

"... _Abigail,_ " he whispers.  "You're all right..."

His daughter's posture is rigid, her expression is neutral and not at all warm.  It's only her eyes that betray her, a myriad of emotions flickering through them.

"Father," she says.

Five minutes pass between them in silence.  Unsure of what to say, Robert waits until Abigail starts again.

"When I woke up at the hospital...they...well," Abigail shuts her eyes, trailing off momentarily before opening them again.  "I know what happened."

Robert has the decency to shrink back, eyes downcast and sorrowful as he remembers the monster he had let himself become.  He remembers so clearly watching his daughter be carried onto an ambulance by paramedics via stretcher, as police officers roughly shoved him into the back of a patrol car.

_"Professor Callaghan!"_

A voice he had blocked from his memory so long ago had resurfaced then.  He hadn't cared at the time.  He hadn't cared when he'd heard the young man's screams, nor upon seeing the rage etched on the face of the man's kid brother after he had learned the truth behind his older brother's death.

"I'm sorry this...I'm sorry it took me so long to come here, you know?  But it...it just took me a long time to come to terms with what you did, you know...?"

His daughter's voice cuts through his thoughts like a knife.  Her eyes brim with tears and she shakes her head.

" _Why?_ "

Reluctantly, he looks up at her and inwardly crumbles at what he sees.  There's love there, yes, and he's relieved to see that, but there is also great disappointment that reflected in his daughter's eyes.  It breaks Robert's heart, but deep down he knows he deserves every last bit of it.

"He didn't have to die, you know," Abigail says tightly.  "Even if...even if you _had_ lost me forever...even if there _hadn't_ been a way to bring me back..."

 _Five minutes left on the clock._   It's the longest five minutes of Robert Callaghan's life. 

"I heard he was your favorite student...you could have _saved him_..." his daughter continues, relentless.  "You could have just waited for his younger brother to come to your class...maybe he could have figured something out with the portal anyway.  You could have avoided this whole thing...!"

Robert lowers his head once more.  His daughter's voice is starting to become shrill.  He closes his eyes, tears forming hot underneath his lids.  He doesn't want to hear this.  He knows, but he doesn't want to hear it.

Abigail smacks her hand down on the counter before her.  "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Robert jerks his head up abruptly at the command, and gasps as he does so.  The tears that had been trapped behind his eyelids stream down his cheeks without hesitation, with no barrier to hold them back.  The words he so desperately wishes to say die before reaching his lips.

_Abby.  I was wrong.  I'm sorry.  I love you.  Please forgive me._

Instead, he only manages to stutter, voice repentant.  "What...how...can I...?"

His daughter responds forcefully.  "Fix it...!"

"Tell...t-tell me—"

 _Two minutes left on the clock._   Abigail smacks her hand down on the counter again.  "Damn it, Dad!  Just say you'll fix it...!"

"I-I would...but...but how...h-how...?"

He watches as his daughter hangs her head for a moment and lets out a sigh before lifting her head once again.  This time when she speaks, it's a lot softer, but no less stern.

"Just promise me you will...and I will help you."

 _Or you will never see me again,_ his daughter doesn't say, but Robert hears her underlying threat loud and clear anyway.  Unable to form the words necessary, he simply nods his head in assent.

His daughter finally leans back from the glass, finally appeased.  She nods at her father curtly.  "Good."

Robert finds himself looking at her, frantically trying to memorize every inch of his daughter's face, because _he knows_.

 _Ten seconds left on the clock._   "See you in ten years."

 _No,_ Robert wants to say, but he leaves it alone.  He doesn't want to risk pushing his daughter away more than he already has.

The time runs out and the screen flickers off.  He barely registers the guard forcing him out of his chair and escorting him back to his cell.  He's on autopilot when he moves from the secure door to sit down on his bunk in the isolation chamber. 

He has ten years to come up with a plan.


	2. In Memoriam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I seriously don't know why stuff like this keeps happening to me...but half of my notes for ongoing projects got lost recently! :( I'd be lying if I said I didn't find that to be quite depressing. I honestly don't know if I accidentally deleted them, misplaced them somehow while organizing them, or a virus wiped them out, but they're gone! Normally this wouldn't be a problem if I were in a regular update mode, but some of these stories that are currently in limbo have been that way for quite a while now! Hopefully I recover the notes soon, but if not, I'm really going to have to just wing it with some of these...sigh...! Anyway, it drives me absolutely crazy knowing that I have so many projects up in the air, so this is my attempt at slowly whittling away at them. (I have yet to learn my lesson about posting chaptered projects long before I've written a bulk of it. I always get so eager to share my stories with the world and not really think about the possibility that I might run into a terrible mountain of a writer's block!)
> 
>  **A quick note about how I came up with ages here.** Disney Wiki says Hiro is 14 in the movie, I'm doing a 15-year time lapse here in this chapter. In the movie, I remember Hiro saying he was 3 when Tadashi and his parents died, and Disney Wiki has the parents as deceased 10 years prior to the movie. I'm just going out on a limb and assuming that Tadashi was 10 years old when that happened, making him 7 years older than Hiro for the sake of this story. I am by no means saying that the ages I choose for them in my story are solid facts; this is just my own personal head-canon. Just wanted to let all you readers know ahead of time. That said, I had to change my original timeline for this story because the way the numbers turned out with those calculations ended up conflicting with what I ultimately had in mind. Thankfully I decided on this early, so it's become just a minor change. I guess the writer's block of doom can be occasionally good for something.
> 
> BY THE WAY. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THE KUDOS! I was so surprised the first chapter of this story has gotten so much support already, and we've barely gotten started with what I actually set out to do with this story! Thank you, thank you! You all are the best!
> 
> Anyway, enough of my rambling. Here we go now! Sorry this is so overdue!

A frantic voice crackles through the communications line. It's Wasabi. _“Shoot...! I think I lost sight of them!”_

Hiro half-smiles when he sees the target—a pair of bank robbers—whizzes by. He pats Baymax on the shoulder and responds to Wasabi as Baymax takes off.

“Got 'em in our sights, man! We're on it!”

“ _Well thank goodness!”_ Wasabi responds. _“Where they headed?”_

“Looks like they're headed for the water. They must have a boat or something,” Hiro replies.

“ _Tsk. **Really?** ”_ Gogo says just then, and Hiro doesn't have to the expression on her face to know that she's rolling her eyes wherever she is. _“They could at least **try** to make it interesting, you know? Maybe a plane, or...”_

“ _A super fighter jet?!”_ Fred cuts in. _“With all the latest tech, and...ooh! Ooh! Complete with mega thrusters and hyper cannons!”_

“ _Guys...! Come on...!  Focus!”_ Honey Lemon chimes in. _“Where are you now, Hiro? Can you send us your location?”_

Hiro chuckles. “Way ahead of you, Honey Lemon! You all should be receiving some coordinates from me now!”

“Hiro,” says Baymax. “I see the two men we are chasing right below us.”

“Good, Baymax!” Hiro says with a smile. “Let's go get 'em, buddy!”

Baymax dives downward, and the mission proceeds like clockwork. Fifteen years, Hiro figures, is enough time for the team to have figured out how to be professional superheroes. Not to mention, in a rather odd twist, Fred had sometime ago discovered that his parents had been secretly living double lives as superheroes for quite a while. The group might have been more shocked, had they not experienced all that they had at that point. Fred, of course, easily forgot any instance of surprise and wasted no time in letting excitement take the wheel. His parents had been mentoring Hiro, Baymax, and the rest of the team ever since.

The authorities summoned and the criminals taken away, Hiro and his friends say their goodbyes and go their separate ways, agreeing to meet the next day for yet another venture. Life for the team is never dull these days.

Hiro and Baymax greet Hiro's Aunt Cass as soon as they get home. Aunt Cass still runs the cafe bakery below their home, as bubbly as ever, though her movements are a little slower now, and her hair does show some signs of gray. Hiro gives his aunt a warm hug, and Aunt Cass puts some cookies for him on a plate and sends the young man and his robot on their way.

Hiro and Baymax go up the stairs. Over the years some things have changed as far as the décor of Hiro's room. He's 29 years old now, and if Tadashi were alive today, his older brother would be 36. There are subtle changes, such as the difference in posters on the wall, reflecting changes in interest, and the content of papers scattered about—all of Hiro's latest ideas and blueprints for new inventions. The technology in Hiro's workstation is also the most recent and best available.

They could even afford to live in a better place now, but Aunt Cass is set in her ways, and Hiro doesn't have the heart to leave her. There is, of course, also one other reason; one even more significant than that.

_Tadashi._

The separator used to divide the halves of the room is closed now—has been for a long time, really—and it's been ages since Hiro last looked at the other side. His Aunt Cass cleans it from time to time, but she takes great care to leave everything in its place and always remembers to pull the separator back into place again, so as to appear as if nothing has changed. She wants Hiro to open it back up himself if and when he should finally feel ready to do so.

If Hiro were to be completely honest though, he's not sure if he'll ever actually be ready to step back into his brother's side of the room ever again. However, he takes great comfort in knowing that the other side remains as his brother last left it, perfectly preserved.

Sometimes, he pretends that his brother is there with him, just on the other side. Hiro doesn't remember when he started doing it, but there was one day after a mission where he sat down in his chair, stared at the divider, and just started talking. Baymax had stood there on his charging station, quietly watching him. When Hiro had asked if the robot thought him strange, Baymax just responded in that matter-of-fact way of his that he knew Hiro was simply utilizing a method to manage his grief, an emotion that does not necessarily fade or go away, as noted in Baymax's downloaded grief database. They didn't really speak of it again after that. Hiro is grateful that Baymax never asks him why he doesn't do it on days where he doesn't feel like he can, and Hiro never asks Baymax whether or not the robot actually understands.

Today, Hiro wants to talk. He plops down on his chair and Baymax takes his place on his charging station. Hiro's ears pick up on the faint whirring noise that tells him Baymax has just given him a full-body scan. He half-smiles. It's a function that makes the robot occassionally oddly perceptive. Like now.

“Are you satisfied with your care?” Baymax asks, somehow knowing that Hiro wishes to spend some time alone.

“Yes, Baymax. I am...” Hiro says, giving the robot a small smile. “Thank you.”

“Sweet dreams, Hiro,” Baymax replies.

“Yeah...” Hiro whispers as he watches Baymax shut down for the night. “You too, buddy...”

At some point, Hiro gets up and shuts off the light. He then settles back into his seat and stares at Tadashi's side of the room in silence for what feels like an awful long time. He closes his eyes and imagines his brother waiting patiently. For a while, he just listens to the ins and outs of his own breathing.

Finally, he decides that he's ready to speak, right around the time he imagines his brother looking at him expectantly and asking, _“Well?”_

“Well...we stopped a couple of guys from robbing a bank today,” Hiro begins. “Nothing to it, really. Compared to some of the people we go up against, these guys were just small fries.”

He imagines Tadashi laughs. _“Is that so?”_

“Yeah.”

It's not too difficult to imagine what his brother will say to his stories; what mannerisms he has when he responds. There was a time when Hiro felt great despair upon realizing that he might someday forget the voice, but then Baymax quickly reminded him that he'd always have Tadashi's worklogs. Hiro must have backed up copies of his brother's precious video diaries well over a thousand times and had them saved in a million different locations. Heavily encrypted too, of course. As many times as he'd seen them, he never tired of watching them.

“We're helping out as many people as we can...” Hiro says quietly. “Just like you wanted.  That's why we do it, you know.  We do it for you...”

_"I know."  
_

He doesn't know what time it is when he finally falls asleep; isn't certain whether what he hears next is real or imagined. A soft whisper.

“ _I'm proud of you, Hiro."_

A single tear breaks past the barrier of closed eyelids and slides down the young man's cheek.


	3. The Restless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my face totally looks like :o right now because of how much support this story has been receiving. On that front, I'm so speechless I don't know what else to say about it, so I'm just going to leave it at that. LOL. Thank you all so much!
> 
> My heart, on the other hand, looks like :( because I discovered this morning that the missing file mishap stretches further than I initially thought. I've lost a TON of important notes for one of my most longstanding projects in a different fandom. Head is totally buried in hands and quite sad.
> 
> Anyway, in the meantime...I MOVE ON by presenting you all this next chapter! (Eventually I'll get around to picking up all the shattered pieces of my other work...sigh... *sob*)

Abigail, with her fingers, absently crinkles parts of the papers she holds in one of her hands while she talks on the phone. 

“You received my transmission, yes?” she asks.

“ _We did,”_ the person she's speaking to replies. _“We've looked it over.”_

“Well?” Abigail asks. “What do you think? Will it work? I thought it looked good...”

She's placed on speakerphone. One voice shouts to another.  _ “Hey! What did you say the likelihood of the plan working is again?" _

“ _Tell her it looks good!”_ another voice shouts back, sounding a bit further away than the first. _“For the most part, anyway...I mean, there's still a few kinks to work out, but I think it could—”_

There's a click and the first voice comes through clearer. Abigail knows she's been taken off speaker mode.

“ _Did you get that?”_

“Yeah...” Abigail says. “What's the chance for error, then?”

There's brief hesitation from the other side. Then,  _ “...honestly? It's hard to say. This hasn't exactly been done before.” _

Abigail leans back in her chair and sighs. “Touch é ...” she breathes.

She spreads the letter she's holding out across her desk and presses her palms over the sheets, working out the creases she's made. She sighs again.

“Perhaps this isn't such a great idea after all...” she says as she feels the onset of a headache creep in.

“ _No!”_ Abigail sits up a bit straighter at the other person's sudden outburst. _“No...we just...Hiro just can't know, that's all. In case it doesn't.”_

The expression in Abigail's eyes soften. “Mm...yes. Quite  right ,” she says. “How...how is he doing these days, if I may ask...?”

“ _He's...fine.”_ There is a brief pause. Then, _“Could be better, of course.”_

Abigail nods. “ I'll be getting my father next week .  He's being released. ”

“ _...ah. Con—”_

“No. Not at all,” Abigail cuts in smoothly. “Not under these circumstances.”

“ _...I understand.”_

“So that's when we'll start,” says Abigail. “I'll make sure he gets on it right away. I mean...not to say he'll rush or anything. I'll make sure he takes his time in making the final product, but...you understand.”

“ _I do.”_

Abigail sighs again for what feels to her like the thousandth time. “I... _ thank you _ so much for understanding, really...I mean, it's just...that's the deal that was made. He serves his time, and then for atonement—”

A soft chuckle from the other end.  _ “Hey,  look ...we understand. He's still your father. None of us ever wanted to keep you from that. Not even Hiro. Believe me.” _

Abigail half-smiles. “Really, I'd love to, but I can't help but find that all a little difficult to believe.”

“ _Well...try to trust me on this one.”_

At this, Abigail allows herself to laugh a little. “I suppose that much I could do.  _ Try _ .”

Things are silent for a moment. Then Abigail pats a hand down on her desk. 

“Well!” she says. “I think that's pretty much it for now...all that's left is to pick my father up from the penitentiary in a week.”

“ _Sounds good. Keep us posted. We'll keep you updated as well on how things are progressing on our end.”_

“Of course, and I'd appreciate that very much. Thank you,” Abigail says. “You all take care now.”

“ _You do the same.”_

She hangs up the phone shortly after and then spends some time poring over the letter's contents once more. She remembered feeling the jitters when she first realized what it was upon pulling it out from her mailbox. A letter from her father.

“ _Dearest Abby,”_ it read. _“Here it is; what you've asked. I can assure you that this is my best work.”_

Beneath the short introduction began a series of blueprints, calculations, and instructions that spanned for several pages afterward. The minute she understood what it was, and after checking things over herself a few times, she had immediately forwarded it to Gogo Tomago and the rest of the team; excluding Hiro, of course. They had all agreed it would be best for Hiro to be left in the dark about their plan for a number of reasons. The first being  a preventative measure of sorts, in the case her father's plan doesn't pan out the way it should. The second reason, and arguably the more important reason, is a tad more complicated. 

It's why they call they decided to call it “Operation: Rewrite.” Truthfully, in a completely off-chance stroke of genius, Fred had actually come up with the name, and for once his fellow compadres had quickly taken to it, finding the label to be rather appropriate.  They would be doing more than rew orkin g the past, however. The plan  also intends to erase the pain and suffering that Hiro had gone through while at the same time replacing old memories with the new. It isn't going to be easy, and there is no guarantee that all or any of  it will work, but they all agree that it's worth a shot at the very least.

Abigail reviews her father's notes until she reaches the very last page. She taps at it twice with her index finger when she gets down to the end, and then takes a brief glance over at her mobile phone. 

“One more week, then it'll be time,” she whispers to herself. “And then maybe we can all finally put an end to this terrible nightmare...”


End file.
